The El Royale is a historic apartment complex located at the intersection of Rosewood Avenue and Rossmore Avenue in the

Hancock Park Hancock Park is a city park in the Miracle Mile section of the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The park's destinations include the La Brea Tar Pits; the adjacent George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, which displa ...

neighborhood of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. It was designed by famed architect William Douglas Lee and completed in 1929. The apartment building is known as a home for celebrities, and for its iconic green neon rooftop sign, which had been unlit for 50 years.

History

The El Royale was constructed in 1929, underwritten by the Barco Investment Company. William Douglas Lee, architect of the famed

Chateau Marmont The Chateau Marmont is a hotel located at 8221 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The hotel was designed by architects Arnold A. Weitzman and William Douglas Lee and completed in 1929. It was modeled loosely after the Château d'Ambois ...

, was conscripted for the design. It was created as a fusion of

Spanish Colonial Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish architecture in general. Thes ...

, French

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

, and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

styles and featured modern state-of-the-art amenities such as an elevator,

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

, and

putting green A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". T ...

. It also showcased luxuries including

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

floors, elaborate

chandeliers A chandelier () is an ornamental lighting device, typically with spreading branched supports for multiple lights, designed to be hung from the ceiling. Chandeliers are often ornate, and they were originally designed to hold candles, but now in ...

, panoramic penthouse views, and hand-carved wood. In 1952, the apartments purchased the Union Oil Building at S Hope Street and 7th Street in

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

as an investment for $2.2 million (equivalent to $ million in ). In November 2012, the El Royale was purchased by Kamran Hakim and Farhad Eshaghpour for $29.5 million in cash.

Legacy

The El Royale has been known as a home for celebrities over the years, including

Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Nicolas Cage, various accolades, including an Academy A ...

Huell Howser Huell Burnley Howser (October 18, 1945 – January 7, 2013) was an American television personality, actor, producer, writer, singer, and voice artist, best known for hosting, producing, and writing ''California's Gold'' and his human interest sh ...

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and ...

, and

George Raft George Raft (né Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembe ...

. Scenes for ''

Double Indemnity ''Double Indemnity'' is a 1944 American film noir directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. Wilder and Raymond Chandler adapted the screenplay from James M. Cain's Double Indemnity (novel), novel of the same na ...

'' (1944) were filmed in the building's garage. The front facade of the building has been used in scenes for the TV series ''All of Us'' and ''Girlfriends'', implying that one of the fictional characters from each show lived at the apartments. The El Royale, however, is ''not'' the setting of the 2018 movie ''

Bad Times at the El Royale ''Bad Times at the El Royale'' is a 2018 American neo-noir Hyperlink cinema, hyperlink thriller film written, directed, and produced by Drew Goddard. Starring Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, a ...

''.

References

External links

* * Apartment buildings in Los Angeles 1929 establishments in California {{LosAngeles-struct-stub